www.Google.iq

On Thursday, internet behemoth Google launched the domain name google.iq to offer the next generation of pertinent search results for web- savvy Iraqis. Combined with Google’s simultaneous emergence in Tunisia, the new additions mean that Google now has 184 local domains worldwide, with 15 of those in Arab countries.

“ The new domains will help people in Iraq and Tunisia find locally relevant information, faster,” AbdelKarim Mardini, Google’s product manager for the Middle East & North Africa, wrote in a recent blog post. “For example, a search for [central bank] on the Iraq domain yields results relevant to someone in Iraq, such as the Central Bank of Iraq. On the other hand, the same search on the Tunisia domain returns slightly different results.”

The most interesting aspect of the new Google.iq domain is the language support for native Arabic and Kurdish speakers. In keeping with Google’s stated goal of covering the world’s top 40 spoken languages and 99 percent of all Internet users, the company announced its plans to launch more domains in the coming months. Anyone’s guess where and when they’ll emerge.

Here’s hoping the advent of Google in Iraq ups internet usage. It was recently reported that despite a higher mobile penetration since the US invasion, internet penetration in Iraq remains among the lowest in the Middle East. Only 15% of Iraqis said they browse the Internet, and most of these users live in Baghdad.

This low usage is understandable. Under Saddam’s regime, internet access was strictly controlled and very few people were permitted to be online. In 2002, it was estimated that as few as 25,000 Iraqis used the internet. As private companies, NGOs and USAID mend the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, the Iraqi people await the opportunity to explore new land-based Internet access methods. As of 2010, an estimated 5 million Iraqis have access the Internet.

I don’t want to appear mean-spirited, and assume these comments are reviewed before appearing. Regardless, let me first thank you for making this site compatible with requirements for readability. It is one of the few that I am able to use easily, despite having all sorts of low-vision enhancements and magnifications enabled. I thank you for that.

I found this post informative. It was a worthwhile use of my time, and provided value, which is not all that common on the internet, what with content farms, spam blogs etc. However, and now the less pleasant part, there are some typos and grammar errors that were puzzling enough that I had to re-read the sentence or paragraph several times through to grasp the meaning. These look like the oversights of someone who created original content (not a copy-and-paste job!). They aren’t the sort of things that MS Word or grammar checkers often catch. Mea culpa of plenty of the same, as evident on my blogs!

I hope you accept this in the spirit in which it was made, which is a desire to be helpful, as it would be far easier to say nothing.

One final thought: A few in-line links or source references at the end would be appreciated. Perhaps that is counter to your editor’s policy though.

*Interesting that you use both a CAPTCHA and a reCAPTCHA!

Reid Smith

Ellie, thanks for your comments. Any copy-editing that needs my attention in this article? As far as I can tell, it looks clean…also, I have provided several in-line links, but perhaps could do a better job high-lighting them! Thanks for reading!

Author

Reid Smith

Reid Smith has worked as a research associate specializing on U.S. policy in the Middle East and as a political speechwriter. He is currently a doctoral student and graduate associate with the University of Delaware's Department of Political Science and International Relations. He blogs and writes for The American Spectator.